Boundary conditions at grain boundaries

Grain boundaries in polycrystalline semiconductor material are frequently idealized as surfaces possessing a characteristic surface recombination velocity. Minority carrier densities generated by external sources (electron beams, light, etc.) in polycrystalline p–n junctions must satisfy certain boundary conditions at these grain boundaries which will be derived. It will also be shown that a ‘‘folding technique’’ introduced recently to deal with this problem is of limited value.